How do your ILs refer to themselves when communicating with you?

[Kassia]

36 minutes ago, katilac said:

 

How old were you when you met the inlaws? I always wonder if those on the younger side are more likely to do the mom and dad thing. I was 24 when I met the inlaws and not really thinking in terms of gaining parents, lol. 

 

I was 18 when I met mine and 19 when we got married.  I think if I had been older I wouldn't have called them mom and dad.  

I'd be thrilled if my future DILs called me mom but my first name is fine.  My older son's long-time gf calls me Mrs. ___ even though I always refer to myself by my first name.  My other son's gf calls me by my first name.  

[Momto6inIN]

42 minutes ago, katilac said:

You can have that without the mom and dad thing, though (not that you said otherwise). 

How old were you when you met the inlaws? I always wonder if those on the younger side are more likely to do the mom and dad thing. I was 24 when I met the inlaws and not really thinking in terms of gaining parents, lol. 

That's true, you definitely can have a close relationship without calling them Mom and Dad. I guess I had the impression growing up that calling them Mom and Dad was the ideal situation/relationship to strive for ... so maybe @Desert Strawberry is right and it's more regional/cultural than I thought.

I was 22 when I met them and 23 when we got married.

[RootAnn]

My MIL died before she became my IL.

My FIL signs his letters as Papa [First name]/Dad. DH calls him Dad. The rest of us do the former. My BIL's family does something different so I assume he signs differently for them.

My dad probably signed either his first name or Dad, but I don't remember. Not much correspondence from him. He was a man of few words. He died seven years ago.

My mom signs "MIL" on cards to my husband & on joint cards, "M.O.M./MIL." Or her first name, I guess. 

Been married over 20 years. All the different families have different names for my mom & FIL. My ex-SIL referred to my mom by my paternal grandmother's first name as a sort of on-going joke. Ex-SIL asked my mom, "What do you want me to call you?" My mom said, "Well, I called my mother-in-law [dad's mom's first name]." Ex-SIL said, "Okay, [dad's mom's first name]. I can do that."

ETA: I was 20 when I met my future ILs.

Edited August 8, 2019 by RootAnn

[hippiemamato3]

5 hours ago, katilac said:

You can have that without the mom and dad thing, though (not that you said otherwise). 

How old were you when you met the inlaws? I always wonder if those on the younger side are more likely to do the mom and dad thing. I was 24 when I met the inlaws and not really thinking in terms of gaining parents, lol. 

Yes. I love my in-laws. I really do. They are people I go to for help/advice and they are my family. I would feel weird calling them mom & dad but it doesn't mean we are less close than those who do. Also, I don't think it's common to call in-laws mom & dad here in the Northeast. 

[lulalu]

13 hours ago, katilac said:

You can have that without the mom and dad thing, though (not that you said otherwise). 

How old were you when you met the inlaws? I always wonder if those on the younger side are more likely to do the mom and dad thing. I was 24 when I met the inlaws and not really thinking in terms of gaining parents, lol. 

I was 22 when I met my in-laws and married. So youngish but not real young. I didn't view it as gaining parents, more becoming a family. I still had both my parents then too. And still called mil mom, but fil has always been first name. But I think that is more that he is not very fatherly. We could go years without him talking to us (even though he was a present dad for my dh as he grew up). 

[lulalu]

dp

Edited August 9, 2019 by lulalu

[Faith-manor]

When I was first married, they insisted on referring to themselves as "mom and dad" and wanted me to call them that, but I had both of my parents so it was very uncomfortable because I would use their first names, and they would come back with "mom and dad". It wasn't a fun three years. But then we had our daughter, and the other grandkids referred to them as Granny and Grandpa Sandy (Sandy was a nickname) so I started using those terms all the time. Father in law has been gone for a number of years, but granny is still granny even though all the grandchildren are adults. She likes it. So happily, the problem did resolve.

[Jaybee]

I've been married a looooong time, but I still don't know what to call my in-laws. I asked when we were newlyweds, and my MIL said, "Whatever you want to." Which only made me not call them anything. Mrs. lastname seemed too formal, firstname seemed too informal, and I am uncomfortable calling anyone mom or dad but my mom and dad. Sometimes I call them Mr. first name and Mrs. firstname (South, so not abnormal), but I don't call them by name most the time. On the phone, their voices are distinctive, so they don't say "This is ___________." It's pretty obvious who they are. Dh calls my mom Mrs. lastname, but that's just kind of who she is. 

Now, the in-laws of one of my daughters do the mom/dad thing. It's a cultural thing where they are from. I feel like it's a little silly of me, but it really bothers me for my dd to call someone else mom/dad. Our other daughter calls her in-laws Mrs./Dr. lastname. They are a little formal though, and it seems fine. They love her and she loves them, it's just a cultural thing. We have told our kids' spouses to call us by our first names. I think one of our sons-in-law is uncomfortable with that, though, because he doesn't address us by name. 

[Lady Florida.]

WRT age: I was much older when I met and then married dh, but both of my SIL's were young and they never said mom or dad to my IL''s. We all called them by their first names.

[Annie G]

 

Never called my in-laws Mom and Pop until the last few years of their lives. I think it evolved then because due to their illnesses I was caring for them...sometimes doing pretty intimate things like wiping butts. In a weird way, we just became very close through that and it felt ok to call them that.  

After my mom passed mil mentioned that she hopes I consider her like a mother. I didn’t, but I did appreciate her effort.